Canadian tech giant Shopify Inc. will layoff 10 per cent of its workforce Tuesday because the company misjudged the growth of e-commerce.

The Ottawa e-commerce company鈥檚 chief executive Tobi L眉tke said in a blog post that most of the staff impacted by the cut work in recruiting, support and sales.

Shopify will also eliminate 鈥渙verspecialized and duplicate鈥� roles as well as groups that L眉tke said were 鈥渃onvenient to have but too far removed from building products.鈥�

The company is carrying out the cuts because the COVID-19 pandemic created a surge in demand for Shopify鈥檚 software as consumers shifted to making a higher number of purchases online, L眉tke said.

Shopify bet the amount of shopping people did online instead of at brick-and-mortar retailers would leap ahead by five or 10 years from pre-pandemic predictions.

鈥淲e couldn鈥檛 know for sure at the time, but we knew that if there was a chance that this was true, we would have to expand the company to match,鈥� L眉tke said.

鈥淚t鈥檚 now clear that bet didn鈥檛 pay off.鈥�

Shopify has recently seen people are reverting to pre-pandemic shopping habits. While e-commerce is still growing steady, L眉tke said it doesn鈥檛 amount to a five-year leap ahead, forcing Shopify to make cuts.

鈥淯ltimately, placing this bet was my call to make and I got this wrong. Now, we have to adjust,鈥� said L眉tke.

鈥淎s a consequence, we have to say goodbye to some of you today and I鈥檓 deeply sorry for that.鈥�

Shopify is not alone in laying off workers. Over the last few months, Wealthsimple, Klarna, Twitter and Netflix have all shed staff as investor exuberance around tech stocks has faded, inflation has soared to an almost 40-year high and recession rumours have loomed.

Data aggregator Layoffs.fyi has counted 401 startups that have laid off a collective 57,552 employees so far this year.

Amid a broad market sell-off that has particularly weighed on the tech sector, the price of Shopify鈥檚 stock has sunk more than 70 per cent since its late 2021 peak of $2,228.73. It sat at $40.40 in mid-morning trading Tuesday.

Those affected by Tuesday鈥檚 layoff will get 16 weeks of severance pay, plus an additional week for every year of tenure at Shopify. The company will also remove any equity cliff 鈥� a minimum amount of period workers have to stay at a company before they can start receiving equity.

Laid off workers will get access to career coaching, interviewing support, resume crafting services and Shopify will cover some of their internet costs during the severance period.

Workers will also be able to keep their home office furniture the company gave them a stipend for earlier in the pandemic and will give a 鈥渒ick-start allowance鈥� that can be used to buy new laptops.

Companies in this story: (TSX:SHOP)

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press

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